DUCHESNE ON SPENGLER –“…the architecture of the Gothic cathedral expresses th

DUCHESNE ON SPENGLER

–“…the architecture of the Gothic cathedral expresses the Faustian will to

conquer the heavens; Western symphonic music conveys the Faustian

urge to conjure up a dynamic, transcendent, infinite space of sound;

Western perspective painting mirrors the Faustian will to infinite distance;

and the Western novel responds to the Faustian imperative to

explore the inner depths of the human personality while extending outward with a comprehensive view… “–

–“it was not a calmed, disinterested, rationalistic ethos

that was at the heart of Western particularity; it was a highly energetic,

goal-oriented desire to achieve mastery and exploitation of the natural

world. The West was governed by an intense irrational will to transcend

the material limits of existence.”–

–“Farrenkopf thus notes (45) that in contrast to Weber, for whom the West “exhibited an unrivalled aptitude for rationalization,” Spengler saw in the West a distinctive primeval-irrational will to power. I also agree with Farrenkopf that “the existence of profoundly different cultural styles demonstrates, according to Spengler, the diversity, not the unity, of human psychological orientation in civilizational development” (45).”–

–“Farrenkopf, however, makes the persuasive argument that there are

“two Spenglers”: an earlier one who lamented the spreading of bourgeois

philistinism and the exhaustion of Europe’s majestic aristocratic

tradition, and a later one who saw in science and technology a continuation

(for some time) of the vitality and transformative energy of

the West (51).”–